Blade Runner 2049

Officer K (Ryan Gosling), a new blade runner for the Los Angeles Police Department, unearths a long-buried secret that has the potential to plunge what’s left of society into chaos. His discovery leads him on a quest to find Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former blade runner who’s been missing for 30 years.

I’m late and I didn’t go see this movie as quickly as I thought I would. It’s not that I didn’t want to go see Blade Runner 2049, but I kept putting it off and then once I finally did see it, I felt like I needed a few days to let it set in. I’m going to to try and make this more of a thought piece. I will give it a grade but there’s just not really much for me to say about it that others haven’t already. If you’re like me and waited to see it, don’t worry I won’t get into any spoilers and you should really go out and watch it…I think it’s definitely worth your time.

The first thing I want to address is the box office. As of right now this film is underperforming and not just slightly either. A lot of people seemed absolutely shocked by this…I wasn’t. So an almost 3 hour long sequel to a 35 year old cult sci-fi noir film is underperforming at the box office? That just doesn’t surprise me at all. Whether we like it or not a large part of the box office depends on people in my age demographic (17-25.) With that in mind, I don’t think any of my friends were rushing out to see BR2049, I don’t know hardly anyone around my age that has even seen the original for that matter. So yeah, I’m not surprised.

I like the original Blade Runner, I don’t “love” it. To me it is one of the unique movies that gets better with every watch. I think on first impression 2049 is better than the original save for a few things. The Blade Runner films are just so different there’s really nothing like them which makes them hard to compare to anything but each other. While the original makes a great foundation, it is 2049 that is able to respect the original while also expanding on the world and ideas that it created. That just seems so rare to me. Not only is 2049 a sequel that is better than its predecessor, but it makes the original better as well.

I’ve been writing about movies for a few years and one thing that I’ve always been critical with is films that prefer style over substance like Batman V Superman for example. Over the years I’ve come to realize that this isn’t always a problem. With Blade Runner 2049 the style is the substance. The best thing about this movie is the world it encapsulates the viewer in. There is a story to be told but you care about that story because of the universe it takes place in. Blade Runner 2049 is a visual masterpiece. Roger Deakins is already a legend, but what he has done here is just beyond words-his best work for sure.

The only real problem that I have with Blade Runner 2049 is that it might just be too long. Some of the things that are explained I just don’t care about as much as others. I was far more interested in K’s work and not anything involving his “wife.” I just wasn’t that interested in her character and some of the scenes just dragged on a bit too long for me. There’s really nothing else wrong with movie it’s almost perfect. I wish that movies like Blade Runner 2049 got more love at the box office- they deserve it and we as moviegoers deserve them.